Valerie Gillies
Valerie Gillies
Valerie Gillies
"Valerie Gillies writes like the wind and jinks like a hare in the fields of language"
Valerie Gillies creates a poetry that lives up to Scotland’s resurgent powers.
Her language is musical, her themes elemental.
Mapping the country as she finds it today, she is alive to immediate experience.
When the grass dances
Orkney International Science Festival film
Mark Jenkins was commissioned to make this film about 'When the grass dances' featuring myself, artist Rebecca Marr and botanist John Crossley.
Read Valerie's poems
From The Spring Teller
Inscription for the Wind-Harp by Mark Norris,
installed in the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh
From The Spring Teller
Written during Valerie's time as Edinburgh's Makar
Hear Valerie reading a selection of her work here at the Poetry Archive
from Wych Elm ed. Max Coleman, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 2009. Wych Elm Exhibition: Hand-painted lettering by Susie Leiper on two matching pieces of Elm prepared by Roger Hall.
Biography
"Born in Canada, brought up in Lanarkshire, and educated in Edinburgh and India...
Gillies writes a richly varied poetry which celebrates life."
Douglas Gifford, Scottish Literature
Former Edinburgh Makar, Associate of Harvard University, Royal Literary Fellow
Publications
"all the time I was there I was walking in your poem"
Anne Matheson, Biggar Public Art
Collections of Poetry
2015 The Cream of the Well, Luath2008 The Spring Teller, Luath2002 The Lightning Tree, Polygon2000 Men and Beasts, with photographer Rebecca Marr, Luath Press (non-fiction and poetry)1998 St Kilda Waulking Song, artist's book with Will Maclean, Morning Star1995 The Ringing Rock, Scottish Cultural Press1992 Poeti della Scozia Contemporanea, Supernova, Venezia [translation]1990 The Jordanstone Folio, with 12 artists, Tay press1990 The Chanter's Tune, Canongate1998 The Tweed Journey, Canongate1987 Leopardi: A Scottis Quair, Edinburgh University Press [translation]1984 Bed of Stone, Canongate1977 Each Bright Eye, Canongate1975 Poetry Introduction 3, Faber1971 Trio, New Rivers Press, New York |
Contributions to Anthologies, selected
2006 | The New Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders, Deerpark Press |
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Where to Buy
Reviews
(selected)
Poetry in Public Places
Valerie Gillies has been inspired to create intensely collaborative works
Professor Laura Severin
North Carolina State University
2008 | Dewpoint with Carol Dunbar and Rebecca Marr, travelled to Stuttgart |
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| Poems by Prescription, Artlink Hospital Galleries, Edinburgh and Lothians |
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Edinburgh Makar
Spring Teller
Despatches
Images: Valerie's portrait by Lachlan Gillies / Edinburgh by einszweifrei / all other images Rebecca Marr
© 2021